Re: EA community managers problem?

Imagine if someone in a customer service call centre had this attitude.

”I’m not gonna take incoming calls anymore ‘cause people are often being rude frustrated when they phone us” 😄

@PsubondI picked the wrong word using “rude”. The vast majority of posts I see are from frustrated players, many of whom now have developed a negative state of mind towards Battlefield 2042 and EA/DICE. But there is a difference between being negative and being rude. My point was to say that as a community manager, if you can’t handle that many people have a negative state of mind as mentioned, then I think you have the wrong job. It’s like when customers phone to a call centre with a specific problem and are frustrated, some even angry. Customer service reps need to be prepared to handle such calls because it’s part of the job. (and of course they are trained for it). You can’t just throw your arms into the air and say, “Hey, I ain’t dealing with these people ‘cause they are being negative”.

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@VOLBANKER_PC wrote:

Imagine if someone in a customer service call centre had this attitude.

”I’m not gonna take incoming calls anymore ‘cause people are often being rude when they phone us” 😄

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Well I don't know what customer service centre you've worked in but rude customers are not tolerated in the ones I've worked in.

@Psubond I think the drift of the OP was if the CMs don't engage with the community, what exactly is their role?

I agree with you that there is a lot of toxicity, angry people say things behind the protection of social media that they would probably not say face to face.

However, there are plenty of people that have constructive feedback, honest questions and quite simply want to know what happened to the franchise. They are also being ignored.

When communication fails, then the trolls get stronger, the rest end up moving on to other games. I have played since BF2 and BF2142, with thousands of hours of play. BF2142 has less than ten hours and I ended up uninstalling it yesterday. I have been hanging on for updates to see what was happening going forward. We now have that in the form of they will add a better scoreboard in March (nothing else was promised for that update). They have then said that they will start working on some things that should have been ready at launch (squad play, communication, etc) up to the start of season one in the summer (no firm dates or commitments).

So essentially the roadmap now seems to be they will try to get the game working by the summer. They will not be making it into what I consider to be a Battlefield game, hence my uninstalling it.

I did receive a feedback survey a few weeks back, but the main concern seemed to be if you had told other people not to buy the game or were thinking of it. No apparent interest in what could turn the game around for veterans.

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@VOLBANKER_PC wrote:

Imagine if someone in a customer service call centre had this attitude.

”I’m not gonna take incoming calls anymore ‘cause people are often being rude frustrated when they phone us” 😄

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It’s more like “I’m not gonna call the official 2042 hate club for suggestions on how to improve the game.” Reddit is no way like taking customer service calls lol

It would be nice if we were informed about the role of the CMs. Is it only to post the announcements? Have they stopped answering to community members altogether? Is it useless to mention them so they answer questions?
For clarity: @Straatford87 @PartWelsh 

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@yodddd  wrote:

If they don't consider 400k member strong r/battlefield community as part of their feedback loop and they delete/ban all constructive criticism threads in this forums... what the are they doing? Is their job to help those few achievement hunters left playing the game? Do we need a new community managers/admins?

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We read your comments and feedback across various channels. Reddit included. But we might not (always) interact on a specific channel where we read feedback. That doesn't mean those voices aren't heard. I can confirm Reddit definitely takes part in our feedback loop. 

@dfk_7677 wrote:

It would be nice if we were informed about the role of the CMs. Is it only to post the announcements? Have they stopped answering to community members altogether? Is it useless to mention them so they answer questions?
For clarity: @Straatford87 @PartWelsh 

A lot of what a Community Manager does is internal where we champion your cause and act as your voice. That means you don't get to see it, but we're doing that every day. Yes, we also push out announcements like Updates Notes, blogs and keep you updated on game status via @BFComms on Twitter.

The other part is speaking with the community to answer outstanding questions, or to collect feedback or report issues. We've mostly done so via Twitter, but also sometimes on Reddit or these forums.

What we cannot do is speak openly for the company without approval. Especially related to topics such as future content. We also aren't the group that makes design decisions, though we can help recommend direction based on player feedback. In short, even if there's a lot of things we want to talk to you about, sometimes we can't. With that said, I definitely wish to talk to you more and I'm sorry if you feel we haven't talked enough. We do care.

we get the mushroom treatment.  feed them * and keep them in that dark

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@Straatford87 wrote:

A lot of what a Community Manager does is internal where we champion your cause and act as your voice. That means you don't get to see it, but we're doing that every day. Yes, we also push out announcements like Updates Notes, blogs and keep you updated on game status via @BFComms on Twitter.

The other part is speaking with the community to answer outstanding questions, or to collect feedback or report issues. We've mostly done so via Twitter, but also sometimes on Reddit or these forums.

What we cannot do is speak openly for the company without approval. Especially related to topics such as future content. We also aren't the group that makes design decisions, though we can help recommend direction based on player feedback. In short, even if there's a lot of things we want to talk to you about, sometimes we can't. With that said, I definitely wish to talk to you more and I'm sorry if you feel we haven't talked enough. We do care.

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Ok, that is good to know and it makes your role clearer to everyone reading this thread. Thank you for your answer.

You are correct, it's supposed to be a mutual discussion.

We're still working on the feedback loop communication. It's still coming, so stay tuned for that.

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@Straatford87 wrote:

We read your comments and feedback across various channels. Reddit included. But we might not (always) interact on a specific channel where we read feedback. That doesn't mean those voices aren't heard. I can confirm Reddit definitely takes part in our feedback loop. 

...

What we cannot do is speak openly for the company without approval. Especially related to topics such as future content. We also aren't the group that makes design decisions, though we can help recommend direction based on player feedback. In short, even if there's a lot of things we want to talk to you about, sometimes we can't. With that said, I definitely wish to talk to you more and I'm sorry if you feel we haven't talked enough. We do care.

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Good to hear that you seem to be listening. But TBH I don't think you understand what we expect of the LOOP part of the 'feedback loop' that was promised. Silently reading what we wrote without communicating back is definitely NO loop!

I also appreciate your words: "With that said, I definitely wish to talk to you more and I'm sorry if you feel we haven't talked enough. We do care." if they were true. Maybe they are -- but as things stand, all communication so far has been a one-way-street.

I fully appreciate and partly understand that you are not allowed to talk about certain aspects, especially regarding content to expect in the next update(s). But there are certain ways of listening. You do the silent version that leaves the other side (the community) in the dark on what you have gathered and what has been passed on.

In my personal opinion (and maybe someone will openly agree that this is the case) it is NOT the right approach. What you definitely CAN DO, no MUST DO -- if you take the community part of your job seriously -- is to practice ACTIVE LISTENING. If you are not aware what this entails, then you may google it, but as a short summary:

1. Paying attention
2. Withholding judgment
3. Reflecting
4. Clarifying
5. Summarizing
6. Sharing

You MIGHT be doing 1) as you said and with your silence also 2). About 3) we cannot say much other than we hope for the best.

But where you definitely fall short is the important part -- as far as the community is concerned -- when you stop at 3) and omit all of the important last 3 parts of active listening.

We understand/accept that you cannot tell us what the next update(s) will bring, but were you really listening, then you could at least provide the summary of what you have gathered and what you are passing on to EA/Dice.Summarize what the most important issues are as far as the community is concerned, summarize what you report back to the team.

That -- together with the 'We are sorry part' that we need to hear from EA/Dice and not from a CM -- would go a long way.

But as long as there is not even the communicating back part of the things you learnt from the forums/reddit/twitter and tell us what you communicate back (which is no secret, given that ALL of this should come from certain parts of the community), then you fail at least half of what your job is about.

I don't necessarily think a survey is needed atm - they already have a short term plan on what needs fixing (scoreboards, some weapon/vehicle balances, season 1 drafts, etc.), and the constant flow of feedback and data should help them in the long term.

We have active confirmation and discussion in the form of the known bugs list and the BattlefieldComms Twitter although, yes, they could still do better.

The sheer volume of data and feedback they recieve is staggering to say the least but trust me when I say they are listening -- They quite often agree with the majority of players, we just all need to work together

Seems to me even the community managers resent the community. This culture of resentment inside DICE seemed to start with BFV and it's definitely hurt the studio. As evident by recent restructuring.

It's DICE's choice to continue down this path, but it'll most likely end up hurting the studio more than the player base.

The player base will just switch to a new game.

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@TTZ_Dipsy wrote:

I don't necessarily think a survey is needed atm - they already have a short term plan on what needs fixing (scoreboards, some weapon/vehicle balances, season 1 drafts, etc.), and the constant flow of feedback and data should help them in the long term.

We have active confirmation and discussion in the form of the known bugs list and the BattlefieldComms Twitter although, yes, they could still do better.

The sheer volume of data and feedback they recieve is staggering to say the least but trust me when I say they are listening -- They quite often agree with the majority of players, we just all need to work together

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communication should be a two way street.  i don't consider a tweet once a week communication.  we should have a roadmap by now with the understanding that things can change on it

@Psubond 

If they went back to Premium we would probably have the roadmap you're looking for but this live service model will always be "**subject to change". By delaying S1 again they have effectively erased the ability to guarantee any timeline for content outside of weekly challenges (these are done months in advance).

Obviously there is room for improvement, I just think they have backed themselves into a corner at the moment - once they get over this first hurdle, we should in theory see a more dedicated timeline + roadmap